to oakland, to oakland

I don't know about you guys, but these days we are trying to take advantage of the last warm and sunny weather before it rains for the next four months straight. One of my favorite things to do on a day-date with Felix is to take a trip into Oakland. It's a great place to hang out! There's the Carnegie Library, of course, with its large children's area. It's funny, Felix always gets excited to play with the thomas-the-tank-engine toys they have there, even though we have a million at home! And let's not for get the "big dino" statue, always a hit. The library shares a wall with the natural history museum (hence the statue) and as we recently discovered, you can even look down on some of the dinosaur skeletons from a window upstairs in the stacks. The library has its own cafe, too, so sometimes in the morning we'll get a tasty treat to share, and head outside for a picnic on the Schenley Plaza. This time, it was coffee for me, juice for fe, and a nice piece of almond sprinkle biscotti! 

I really love the Pitt campus, especially around the library. Gazing up at the Cathedral of Learning is humbling, and a little dizzying, too! Did you know it's the tallest educational building in the western hemisphere? I bet you didn't! Walking around its majestic exterior, with its gothic architecture and all that pale, salem limestone, always makes me think of Minas Tirith (as if that's a place I've visited in real life and can remember). Next we usually spend a little time horsing around this sweet, gravel-paved garden just across the street from the cathedral. I like to think of it as Pittsburgh's answer to the Jardin des Tuileries. 

It's even got a carrousel, you guys! Just like Paris! It's pretty much exactly the same!

Here's Felix, pleased as punch to have nabbed his first-choice mount, this questionable-looking piggie. Once we were walking by and he saw another girl ridding it, and burst into tears for the next fifteen minutes. He just loves that thing! I hear they close the carrousel sometime this month--whatever will we do then?! I still have two tokens!